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Sequester to be or not to be?

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
02/27/2013 06:35:31 AM EST

By Dan K. Thomasson

WASHINGTON -- This is the week to be or not to be, a time when government -- at least those we elect to run it -- will perform responsibly or force us to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous political maneuvering. With apologies to Hamlet, I'm betting on the bloodletting.

Sequestration, a word that actually sounds a bit Shakespearean, may not be the overriding concern of the common citizen, but it certainly should be if our supreme leader and the media are correct about its dire consequences, which President Barack Obama finally got around to emphasizing a scant few days before the executioner's ax is set to fall. That, of course, is Friday, when an ill-advised, draconian effort to cut spending, adopted in 2011, will take effect. It requires huge, indiscriminate cuts in national programs from defense to food stamps.

It remains to be seen how quickly and at what impact to economic stability the billions ordered deleted from spending will have. Will it result in quick, massive layoffs and devastation to vital services, as the White House and its Democratic allies contend, or will it cause only a slight tremor, as Republican anti-deficit hawks are gambling?

This mess is a product of an increasingly dysfunctional federal government. That includes both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, from Capitol Hill to the place where Obama sleeps.

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As hard as the president has tried to stir up some angst with a series of bully-pulpit appearances around the country, surveys have shown that the national excitement level is significantly low, bombarded as Americans have been by one similar crisis after another.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon managers are running around screaming like banshees, governors are voicing uncontrolled fear about the damage to their budgets, and frequent fliers foresee longer security lines and flight cancellations.

The sadness in all this is what it says about democracy, that most imperfect system. It's normally better than anything else when not allowed to disintegrate into a combination of anarchy and polarization. At one time, compromise was the life's blood of functional politics.

We have only ourselves to blame. We the people have elected those with the most money to spend, the most radical ideas, the least sensible and the most absolutist positions we could find.

So here we are in the "to be or not to be" week. Will Obama and the Democrats be correct and the sky will fall or will the Republican predictions of better things for better life through sequestration come true? Or maybe some of both?

God forbid that there would be a way out of this nonsense, one that resulted from a well-thought-out bargain between those we elect to intelligently resolve such messes but who just make matters worse. Stay tuned.

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